CNO: Reducing crew sizes a top priority

[unhappycamper]

Fewer sailors aboard
Roughead ‘confident’ crews can shrink


CNO: Reducing crew sizes a top priority
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Mar 25, 2008 17:59:00 EDT

In upgrading old ships and building new ones, Navy engineers must make reducing crew sizes a top priority, on par with technological additions and life-extending repairs, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said Tuesday.

“There’s no question that crew sizes have got to come down,” he said. “We, frankly, are not aggressive enough in employing the technologies that allow us to take people off ships. It’s largely a cultural thing we’ve got to break through ... and we can do it, I’m confident.”

Roughead said he thought smaller crew sizes were a top feature on the Navy’s new generation of warships, including the Zumwalt-class destroyers — which, although they’re the Navy’s largest new surface combatants since World War II, have a projected crew of 142 — and the littoral combat ships, which will be crewed by 40 sailors who’ll be given multiple jobs.

Roughead said he didn’t have specific goals yet for how much he’d like to reduce crew sizes on so-called “legacy ships” that the Navy plans to upgrade, but he said “my objective will be get it down to the number that allows us to maintain combat effectiveness and provide for the safety and security of the ship.”

“In the past, we’ve had some initiatives underway but they had a hard time taking through,” Roughead said. “In my tenure, I intend to be a little on the bold side.”


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_roughead_smallercrews_032508w/